Use this link to watch the recording of the Mass.
Join us on Thursday, December 19, 8 PM Eastern, for our quarterly PAX Mass. We will pray for peace throughout our war-riven world, with special intentions for the people of Gaza who have suffered for due to economic blockades and military occupation for decades, even more intensely and violently in the past 14 months.
Our celebrant will be Bishop John Stowe, Pax Christi USA’s bishop president.
Use this link to download the program in PDF format.
You can use this link to register for the Mass. If you have registered in the past, there is no need to register again. Zoom will send out a link to everyone who is registered, so keep an eye out for it.
The Our Lady of Gaza icon above is by Costa Rica-based artist Dani M. Jiménez, a member of the Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus (PCYAC), who will be leading us in the Responsorial Psalm this evening. View Dani’s work on Instagram: @&hersaints.
Statement on the icon from artist Dani M. Jiménez
December 2024
Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal has earned her name through her countless miracles. In my own short life, I’ve seen plenty enough to know she does not forsake a promise. This is the Miraculous Medal of Gaza, also called Our Lady of Gaza. It’s a digital piece I painted back in November 2023, when the horror was still fresh. When I first posted it, certain friendships ended, and people around me warned me about oh-so-publicly sympathizing with terrorism. It riddled me with shame more than anger. Because I have been pro-Palestinian since I first knew what Palestine was. Clearly, I had not been vocal enough.
This piece was and still is dedicated to a longtime friend, Wafa El-Rayes, and her family. Wafa and I met over three years ago, and she is an incredible Palestinian-Canadian writer and journalist. She conducted an interview for CBC Radio where she interviewed a family member in Gaza who was seven months pregnant at the time. When this interview happened, this cousin said that she knew she had to deliver via c-section, with no anesthesia available in the Strip. Wafa’s family was able to get her out of Gaza in the end, and she was able to deliver her baby boy in Cairo safely.
However, this was not the case for all 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza at the beginning of this acceleration of genocide. Only God will know what was of those 50,000 women.
Only a miracle can stop this killing machine, set in motion by greed and thirst for power. However, I want to reframe our thinking of this word: ‘miracle.’ in this sense. Saint Teresa of Ávila has this beautiful poem:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours.
Yes, through God’s grace and miracles, Palestine will be free. But Palestine ought to be free first in our minds, in our actions, in our hearts, and in our love for our Palestinian neighbors. You and I have an active duty in all this, both in physical works of mercy and in prayer. Place your trust in God and in Love, and never allow your heart to harden. We do not have the luxury of hopelessness; there is far too much work ahead of us.
Thus, I say:
Holy Virgin, Mother of Christ, pray for us.
Blessed Virgin of the Miraculous Medal, pray for Gaza.
Mother of Hope, pray for your homeland.
Mary of Nazareth, Mother of God, pray for Palestine.
This is an example of compassionate writing. It certainly comes from a compassionate heart. Thank you for sharing it.
Deacon Terry Barber, ofs